I am writing this from the second bedroom of my new flat – a space we have dubbed “the studio”, because we are using it not for sleeping but as a room of creative pursuits. Behind me sits the sewing desk I have longed for; finally, a chance to have both my machines and my fabric and notions out and ready to go at a moment’s notice, after years of setting it all up and packing it all away again. To my right is M—’s keyboard and a whole heap of amps and guitar cases and baffling-looking cables yet to be found homes for.
When I dreamed of this life, I imagined him serenading me while I sewed. In reality, I expect I’ll be donning headphones and getting annoyed that I can’t hear my TV show over the guitar licks. Today, though, he is practising in the living room, at the other end of the flat. I have just ascertained that his refrain of “wine, wine, wine, wine, wine” is in fact a singing exercise – something to do with head versus chest voice – rather than a demand for an alcoholic beverage.
We do, for once, have wine in the house (an unusual occurrence for two people who barely drink) as some of our lovely new neighbours brought us round a bottle a few days after we moved in. I have had high hopes for the people of Walthamstow since they came out in their thousands to protest a rumoured anti-immigrant riot in August, and so far they have not disappointed.
We were supposed to have wi-fi sorted already, but due to a series of cock-ups by Yodel and Virgin – the sort of farce my fellow columnist Nicholas Lezard would be able to spin some very funny copy out of – we do not. We also, due to some sort of strange black hole, do not have any mobile signal in the flat. After several tearful, pathetic phone calls (sat in my nightdress on the front step, due to said lack of signal, embarrassing myself already in front of the neighbours) and half an hour cribbing enough wi-fi from a Morrisons café to order a hoover – the glamour! – M— went out in search of a dongle, a coworking space, or Richard Branson’s head on a spike. His quest failed. All that was left to me was to beg our upstairs neighbours to allow us to steal their internet for a few days, which they kindly did.
In the upheaval and exhaustion of moving, such inconsequential matters seem all-consuming – though in a week’s time they will be forgotten. I am slowly emerging from the admin and boxes to the emotional realisation of what a big deal it is to be moving in for the first time (I’m a late-bloomer, I suppose) with a partner. It is at once enormous – how strange that my bed is no longer mine, but ours; how surreal to have a joint bank account with some bloke off Hinge – and the most natural thing in the world: to no longer have to arrange to see each other, constantly packing and unpacking an overnight bag, but simply to be there. To say good morning and good night IRL, rather than over the phone. To co-own a hoover!
We still cannot believe our luck that we get to call this flat ours. It is everything we wanted – everything that seemed so impossibly out of reach in the throes of flat-hunting. We have two bedrooms, a garden, punchy-but-not-too-punchy commutes (eight miles each way by bike for me), and the luxury of two understairs cupboards. The only compromise is that there’s no dishwasher, and really that is no compromise at all.
Our offer was one of four in contention, the estate agent told me. We went to the very top of our budget to secure it, and I wrote a charming personal statement for the landlord, which I like to think swung it. We had to wait three agonising days to find out we were successful, during which I pled with the universe, God, and any other higher powers I could think of. What a strange state of affairs, to be so desperate to pay someone else’s mortgage. Even after signing the paperwork and handing over our money, I didn’t trust it – not until the keys were in my hand. I simply do not believe myself to be the sort of person for whom things dreamed of go to plan. And yet, this time, they did. Time for a glass of that wine.
[See also: The property rental market is a hellscape]
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This article appears in the 11 Sep 2024 issue of the New Statesman, The Iron Chancellor’s gamble